


Real Family

by Skittery



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Brothers, Fluff, Gen, Light Angst, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-03-06 19:11:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3145427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skittery/pseuds/Skittery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From a tumblr prompt: Crutchie and the Delancey brothers find out that they are related</p>
            </blockquote>





	Real Family

Jack had asked him about it once, when they were younger, still new to each other; had come across him staring into its metallic depths, running his finger over the tiny lettered ridges, his face painted with longing, uncertainty. Jack threw himself down onto the bed next to Crutchie, peering over his shoulder to get a closer look, merely grinning when Crutchie quickly and protectively pulled the pendant on its dulled silver chain out of his grasp.

“Ya swipe that from someone?” Jack asked gleefully, childishly impressed by the younger boy’s apparent skill.

Crutchie shook his head, and held it out so that Jack could see it, while still keeping it just out of his reach. It was adorned on one side with a very modest stone, the other engraved with four letters in brilliant curving script. It was beautiful in its plainness, as frank as a decorative piece of jewelry could be, and while Jack thought to himself that if he were ever to give someone a necklace, it would be much grander than this one, he couldn’t help but admire it a bit.

“It was my mother’s, from before…” Crutchie smiled softly and curled the necklace into his palm before sliding it carefully into in his pocket. Jack heard the conclusion, from before he got sick, before his parents left him on the street, unable to care for him, before he ended up in an orphanage and then back on the streets, until Jack had found him and brought him here, to the lodging house and the job and a life better than.

“Ya think yer ma’s still out there somewhere?” Jack asked cautiously, afraid of the answer, afraid that this boy, who he’d grown far too attached to already, was just waiting for the opportunity to leave, just like everyone else. 

Crutchie shook his head. “I dunno...doesn’t matter,” he smiled up at Jack, “I got all I need here.”

Jack smiled and ruffled Crutchie’s hair, jumping up and starting towards the stairs, going on about how they should be finding dinner before it got too dark. Crutchie pulled himself up and followed, but even if it hadn’t been a lie, even if he knew his mother had abandoned him when the times got too tough, had thrown him away like trash, had never come looking for him or written him or anything, even if he knew he was better off here than he’d ever been before, and happier at that, even if Jack never asked him about the necklace again, Crutchie kept it, stowed safely in his pocket, the tiniest token of the loving family that he imagined he once had.

***  
The first blow glanced off his shoulder, moved defensively just in time to send the fist flying awkwardly into the bricks of the alley wall behind him. Crutchie grimaced as pain shot through the shoulder anyway, hoping it wasn’t visible enough on his face to goad them on. It was summer, hot, the heat rising off the pavement in waves, not a great day in terms of sales, too hot for people to be out on the street, those who were out too easily aggravated by his merely addressing them. He had started back, sweat coating his forehead, exhaustion threatening to slide beneath his pleasant demeanor. He knew they were following him, although he wasn’t sure how long they’d been there; he’d heard the laughter, the quiet, menacing voices and the raucous reply that could only be they, the Delanceys, tracking him like dogs, getting inside his head like a parasite and leading him into the stupid decision to take the alley as a shortcut, its high brick walls and narrow entrance almost an invitation to a fight.

Crutchie knew it was a mistake as soon as he entered the shadowy space, knew what it meant when the footfalls got nearer and louder, scraping the pavement, knew when he briefly stumbled in his haste to make it out of the alleyway that he had no chance, that when he looked instinctively down at his feet he would be looking up into one of their faces; Morris, leaning carelessly against the wall in front of him, smirking.

“Well, ah, ain’t we lucky runnin’ into you?” Morris said lazily, “It’s been real quiet today, an’ we could use us some fun, ain’t that right?” 

Oscar came up at him from behind, nodding dumbly, drawing his arm back to throw the first punch. Crutchie kept his face blank, concentrating, drawing his body around to block the blows, protecting the parts that would bruise most and heal least easily, nobody’s victim, but still smaller, still one against two. Desperation rising, the heat pressing down on them and his shoulders, sides burning where they’d been hit, no one around for him to call for backup, Crutchie lashed out at them with his crutch, treating it like a weapon. Blinded by adrenaline, he didn’t see it land, but heard the thump as it made contact at least once, saw Morris clutching his stomach on the ground while Oscar angrily grabbed the crutch and threw it down the alley, knocking him off balance. 

Crutchie fell opposite Morris, hard on his side against the paved ground, his hands barely breaking his fall, the tiny pocketful of coins he’d managed to earn falling like rain onto the ground, the necklace he still carried spilling out with them. Oscar, still standing, got to them first, sweeping up the coins and the pendant in one fist, ignoring Crutchie’s muted pleas to wait, grinning like it was christmas come early as he put the coins one by one in his own pocket, making a show of it while his brother picked himself gingerly off of the ground. Midway through the little pile, Oscar found the necklace, and held it up as if testing its color or make against the light.

“Well, well,” he said, twirling it, “ain’t this pretty? Far too pretty for the likes of you, eh?”

Crutchie pulled himself up as far as he could without something to grip for leverage, unwilling to tell them what it meant to him, give them more ammunition. Crutchie could feel the heat rising to his face, bruises beginning to form, and underneath it all a burning in his stomach, fear and an old aching like a sea roiling inside of him as he watched Oscar eying the only thing he had left of his former family, the only memory he’d been allowed to keep and hold onto, about to be stripped from him for no reason other than that he was an easy target. 

“Look,” Oscar motioned to Morris, “he even got his initials scrawled into this piece of trash…” 

Morris pulled himself fully upright in one swift motion as Oscar started to read out the letters scratched into the pendant, his face taking on a suddenly serious tone, the laughter and jeering gone, looking like he’d seen a ghost standing there in the alley with them. He snatched the necklace roughly from Oscar’s hand, holding it up close to his eyes.

After a moment, he looked down at Crutchie, the animosity nearly gone from his face, replaced by something closer to amazement, even awe, but with an undertone of familiar suspicion, acid just below the surface. His voice was quiet, humorless, when he spoke, and for once, it didn’t sound like an insult or a challenge.

“Where did you get this?”

Crutchie frowned, confused by the sudden change in Morris’s tone, the intensity lying underneath his words, the confusion marring his expression. Morris’s eyes seemed to change color, his irises deepening, fire in them, a look reserved for a caged animal, wild instinct waiting to leap out; but still, waiting. 

“It’s...it was my mother’s,” Crutchie said cautiously, pulling himself up a little further, resisting the impulse to reach out for the necklace, his mind a blur of confusion and fear and anger, the sun pressing down on them from above the buildings, as though it were watching their confrontation. 

For a moment, Morris looked like he was actually going to pounce, his eyes weaving around the alley before settling on Crutchie, then without a word he turned abruptly, walking right past Crutchie to where his crutch lay further down the alley, picking it up off the ground and carrying it back over, the chain of the necklace still clutched in his hand. Oscar and Crutchie stared, their faces mirrors of confusion. Morris dropped the crutch at Crutchie’s feet, where it clamored noisily against the pavement. 

Morris gestured at the crutch, ignoring the murderous look sweeping across Oscar’s face. “Get up.”

Crutchie scrambled to his feet, eager to put himself back on an equal height plane with the other two. Morris watched him, a curiously contemplative look in his eyes, waiting until he was on his feet to pose the question again, his voice growing more insistent. 

“Where’d you get it?” As if on a sudden decision, he strode forward, trapping Crutchie against the wall of the alley, but not touching him, his hands in fists but not striking, dangling the necklace in front of Crutchie’s face, his hand shaking just the tiniest amount, barely noticeable, nerves or anger, knuckles turning white. Morris lowered his voice, although Crutchie couldn’t tell if it was intentional or not. “I know this necklace, I’ve seen it before. It’s got my mother’s initials on it. So where’d you get it?”

Crutchie blanched, “What?”

Morris stamped his foot slightly, like an impatient child, unable to communicate, to get the point across, for some reason maintaining his slight distance, withholding the blows that Crutchie kept expecting to start anew. Morris felt the haze of anger starting to settle over him again, pushing aside his curiosity, losing his capacity to care, a few words hanging repetitively across his vision; “thief”, “stolen”, “revenge.” 

“The last time I saw this, I was a child,” Morris spat, “my mother lost it with our brother, the one who wouldn’t make it, dead already when he disappeared. You stole this, you stole from my dead brother and I want to know where you got it.”

Crutchie felt his stomach dropping as he replied very quietly, “I didn’t steal nothing. I’ve always had it. It...it was my mother’s.”

Morris’s eyes widened as they swept across Crutchie’s face, testing for honesty, testing for lies, finding nothing hidden in Crutchie’s open glance, his eyes wide above a slowly purpling bruise. The haze in Morris’s mind grew thicker, like a cloud, a fog of emotion, trying to process, to understand, to connect the words with their meaning. He couldn’t be. He wasn’t. Morris saw flashes of his childhood, hidden watching as his youngest brother, dying, sick, always sick, the one he never really knew, was taken away, left outside. His mother crying but only just enough, the last time he remembered her showing any real emotion before dying herself, before teaching them to be hard, to be strong. Two brothers, only two; enough for each other. Morris peered into Crutchie’s eyes and the haze lifted suddenly, blown apart as by a bomb, the fog still lingering in the ashes but clearer, the last ray of sunlight in the alley before it sunk below the skyline. Alway sick, always apart, but Morris could never forget the eyes of the tiny one, the only thing he remembered, open and brimming with unwarranted faith in all of it; Crutchie’s eyes. Taken aback, Morris brought his fist back, as if to throw it, but stopped at the last moment, conflicted, maybe. Instead, he held out the necklace to Crutchie, dropping it lightly into his outstretched palm, moving his hand haltingly to grip Crutchie’s shoulder in a gesture of cautious affection, instead of his usual menace. 

“You were s’posed to be dead,” Morris whispered, his face still drawn somewhere between anger and awe. 

“I ain’t,” Crutchie replied in equally hushed tones, understanding sweeping over him. Morris’s face twitched, almost a smile, and he quickly removed his hand from Crutchie’s shoulder. 

“C’mon, Oscar, let’s go.” Morris started out of the alley, and Oscar, looking confused but unwilling to argue, followed, looking back every so often toward Crutchie, as though amazed that they were leaving him standing, unafraid, unbroken. 

Crutchie watched them go, wrapping his fingers around the cold metal of the pendant he had held with him for so long, coming to terms with the fact that he would never find its owner, never know his once family, never find a use for it besides as a silly childhood comfort; suddenly all of this was thrown into disarray, suddenly it belonged to someone, someone who had abandoned him, yes, but who had left others behind, someone who was a link to real people, people already somehow in his world, brothers in the blood sense, instead of the way he had always used the term. Crutchie clutched the necklace, unsure if he wanted to crush it in his fist or keep it protected.

***

“You comin’?” Jack put his hand on Crutchie’s shoulder, startling him out of his thoughts, which had been a tangled mess the past few days, growing more confused and uncertain even as his bruises turned yellow and started to fade. Crutchie knew he’d been a little more distant than usual, a little bit less of his normally upbeat self. But he couldn’t stop thinking about it, couldn’t stop himself from seeing flashes of a life he thought he didn’t remember, tiny, sick, but not alone, not yet, images of other people floating before his closed eyes at night, a mother, a father, brothers. People whose entire existence he’d forgotten, let go because they’d let him go, but not far enough, apparently, not gone entirely. 

He could tell Morris was having the same thoughts by the way he’d eyed him each morning since, by the way he’d told Oscar to slip Crutchie a few extra papers, slid his money back into his palm one morning, even, like that would make the years in between disappear. They’d never come looking for him, and that was the truth of it; they’d abandoned him for dead, even when he was right under their noses. Morris had looked as though he wanted to say something, once, to pull Crutchie towards him and invite him inside, maybe, or place his hands on his shoulders in kindness instead of anger, or even just speak with affection instead of animosity. But he didn’t, he just walked away with Oscar, with his brother, his real brother, his accepted brother who’d grown up in the same house and with the same blood and never been left on the streets for dead. 

Crutchie smiled up at Jack, “Yeah, just a moment.” 

His turmoil must have shown through the smile, because Jack frowned, and didn’t make a motion to leave. 

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked, coming to sit next to Crutchie on the old, worn bed, meeting Crutchie’s eyes with his own, filled with compassion. “You’ve been outta sorts all week.”

Crutchie considered the question for a moment, unsure if he wanted to answer it, to tell this secret he’d been holding so tightly, as tightly as he held the chain of the necklace now in his hands. When he spoke, it was quickly, and he looked down into his lap, afraid to meet Jack’s eyes, afraid the words would echo with betrayal.

“I found out I...I might have a brother, er, brothers, real ones. By blood.”

“You gonna leave?” Jack’s voice was quiet, and Crutchie could tell he was looking away now, too, and for a moment he was hit by the hypocrisy of it all, that Jack could be mad when he himself talked about leaving all of the time; of course, Crutchie knew that wasn’t real, not in the same way, not in the flesh and blood family to take you in kind of way. 

Crutchie paused, again uncertain. He hadn’t really thought about it yet, not seriously, whether he wanted to leave the only place he’d ever lived, the only place he remembered sleeping and coming back to every night, the only place he remembered feeling loved. Suddenly, Crutchie was struck with an acute sense of homesickness, as though he had already left, even though someday they’d all be grown, and living on their own anyway, maybe it wasn’t as easy as he’d expected to leave. He shook his head.

“I...I don’t think so. I’m not sure they’re really the...I don’t know if we could ever really be...a real family, anymore...after everything…”

He let his voice fade out, and brought his eyes up tenuously to Jack, who was staring straight at him again. Crutchie looked into Jack’s eyes and found no confusion, no fear fighting with loss fighting with longing, like he’d seen in Morris’s eyes, just pure love, simple and plain and perhaps with more layers than Crutchie would ever be able to discover, but above all else the love of a brother, of a family, truer and realer than blood, filled with the understanding that Crutchie had been unknowingly waiting for. A sign.

“Maybe you should try to find that out,” Jack said, bringing his head close to Crutchie’s so that their foreheads touched for one affectionate moment. “But just because they’re blood don’t mean they’re family. You’ve got a family right here, and we’re forever. Don’t forget that.”

Jack pulled his head back and Crutchie nodded, smiling like he hadn’t been able to recently, feeling like a weight was lifting off of him for the first time in days. He belonged here, in this room, with this boy, and even if he wanted to try to figure out his old family, his delancey family, they were an extension, not a replacement. 

Apparently Jack was satisfied with his reaction, because he jumped up off the bed and started towards the stairs. “Now c’mon let’s go.”

Crutchie pulled himself up and started after Jack, slipping the pendant that had belonged to his mother into his pocket by habit. Then he stopped, pulled it out of his pocket, and after one last long glance at it, tucked in carefully into a drawer next to the bed.


End file.
